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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28783230">Mind Over Matter</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/earnesthummingbird/pseuds/earnesthummingbird'>earnesthummingbird</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>True Remembrance (Visual Novel)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:28:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,639</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28783230</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/earnesthummingbird/pseuds/earnesthummingbird</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the world of True Remembrance, David Haydn is a professor of psychology working towards a preventative cure for the Dolor. One day, an encounter with his colleague Lennox Cross leads him to join a secret society to assist his career. There he learns an unsettling truth about the world he seeks recognition from. What will he do with this revelation?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Mind Over Matter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the attic of a connected urban housing complex, a toy soldier was standing at the edge of a polished, oak bookshelf carpeted in a thick layer of dust. It stood facing outward, however not parallel to the edge of the shelf; it was slightly askew. Its crooked placement was so subtle that you probably wouldn’t tell that it was crooked unless you observed it closely and hunted for any sign of misplacement. There it stood for as long as it took the surrounding dust to settle upon its hand-painted visage with the small, round pink nose and black uniform dots in place of its eyes being identical in size and shape that your eyes would compulsively form the outline of a triangle connecting them if you stared at it long enough. The toy soldier was painted without a mouth, suggesting a sense of shyness or timidity. Maybe it was a toy soldier in training. It’s simple uniform once shining a bright, eye-catching “fire truck” or “building block” red was muted by the dust and wornness of use throughout generations. To put it in an appropriate amount of words, this toy soldier had both existed and been there for a long time. And now, it was lying on its side to the floor below. Sometime before, though not sure when, it had fell from its cemented platform through a force not known, and landed with a light thud, more accurately a *thunk* since it was fairly light, not flat enough to produce a thud. It most likely bounced a bit upon impact. There it laid, resuming to collect dust along with its friends still on the shelf: the books, the other toys and figurines lined up where it used to be, and a few framed photos of people huddled together, some in twos and some in threes, though it was always the same three people.<br/>
One day, it was found by someone of similar features to the little boy seen in the framed photos, though he was much older and much taller to the extent that he would now be considered a man. This man, who recognized this toy solider, looked down at it lying helplessly on the floor, blanketed in dust. But it was only for a second until he murmured something to himself, mostly in his mind, and walked off to somewhere else. For he was not standing in the same room as the toy solider for its concern, but for something more important to him. It was a small chest adorned with leather straps glued to the outside and worn-down brass buttons placed evenly apart along the leather straps, giving the illusion that the brass buttons were bolts keeping the straps in place. But the man had always known that it was actually glue underneath them, as one of the straps had its end hanging off the wooden exterior of the chest. Years ago the man had peeled off the end of the strap as is one of the things that children do when touching something old. </p>
<p>The man, somewhere in his thirties, with neatly styled brown hair shaped in the most typical, run-of-the-mill fashion you would see featured in advertisements that it never called attention to itself, and a face that is as plain as his hair. Brown eyes, neither big nor small, and a nose and mouth that complemented his eyes. His build was nothing to write home or be concerned about either. Really, if you were to walk by this person in a street of more than a few people you probably wouldn’t catch his individual presence. This average-looking person lifted the chest from a stack of cardboard boxes at the corner of the room, and lifted the top ajar to find some papers he was looking for. These documents were older than the room itself, though not the oldest thing in the room, and were the only thing taken from it after the man quickly folded them into his coat pocket and marched off, closing the door and once again leaving the room undisturbed.</p>
<p>He opened a front door to the sound of footsteps gathering and stopping in unison, following the familiar three-note chime of the city bus approaching the stop to his right. Down the steps in front of the housing complex he stepped carefully, as on the steps there were patches of ice under the snow. He made for an immediate left, then another left at the corner approaching him, then straight toward the bus stop along with some people standing impatiently. A minute or so passed, and in that time the man’s hands were clenched with the effort to keep warm. It wasn’t particularly cold enough to wear gloves or to have one’s hands in their cost pockets, but it was still generally cold. His eyes were drawn to the bus approaching his stop, as it let out the three-note chime he had heard in this neighborhood since he was a boy. The notes were rather long in succession, each playing slightly longer than welcome. “15-A” read the printed sign above the windshield. He boarded the city bus last, being the mildly considerate person he usually his as nothing had ticked him off that day, and opened his wallet to pull out a card for the driver. This was his ID badge for the “Memphis Institute of Psychology”, where the name “David Haydn” was displayed, and the word “STAFF” featured in the border. The driver gave a subtle mod of his chin and David took a seat in the middle section. </p>
<p>At this time of day the bus was not particularly busy, as most people were off at work. However today was a day off for David, as he needed a good chunk of the day to procure the documents from his parents’ housing unit an hour away from the university. The round trip took two hours, and in between those two hours David had spent an hour or so touring the landmarks of his bittersweet childhood. The housing sector of Memphis he grew up in contained a preparatory school where David studied psychology since he was fourteen. He later specialized in teletransmission at the MIP where he acquired his PhD in neuropsychology. Education has been the forefront of David’s life even to this very day, through now he wishes to set the foundation for a curriculum which would teach his to-be-proven theories instead of participating in one without. Outside of the minimal free time he had as a child, he would often spend his time at the theater a few blocks away from his unit. He gained an appreciation for film as an impressionable adolescent, though it was short-lived when he realized that it would not benefit his career to distract himself with that nonsense. Film was primarily a form of entertainment, to be enjoyed when it is consumed, he thought at the time.</p>
<p>The bus chimed and David glanced at the screen near the windshield, then stood up for the exit. Now he was arriving at the train station, and from here it is a half hour to the bus station near the campus. On the train ride he kept his head peering through the window, passing blurry arrays of billboards and screens, flashing bright colors meant to overpower the repetitive sights of daily life for the public, eventually becoming a part of it. Occasionally he would see brief glimpses of the sun between the skyscrapers and apartment complexes flooding the city. David checked his watch. It was 3:27pm.</p>
<p>The watch now read 4:00pm when the second bus of the day would give out the fourth chime of the day and once again a handful of impatient people would go marching in. Except the bus had been delayed today, despite it not being busy at all at this time and the roads mostly cleared of the snow. The bus came and the watch read 4:17pm. It’s a good thing David didn’t have anywhere to be, he thought.</p>
<p>Walking up the bleached, concrete steps to campus David noticed that one of the billboards had changed today. It was the one above the welcome center which now featured an advertisement of a young, smiling family of three. The text to the left of the family in a bold lighter red read “Make Moments Last” with the Concord logo below it. Concord of course, being a well-known camera company. Passing a group of bustling students, most likely freshmen judging by their expressed vigor, David pushed through the heavy glass door to the reception desk. “Is the assistant dean in today?” He enquired to the receptionist. She gave a quick “Yes” through a plastered smile and gestured to the staircase on the right. The red-light indicators above the door at the top of the stairwell switched to a bright green. David rushed up the stairs before the lock reset, and knew which way to walk down the path of hallways to reach the assistant dean’s office.</p>
<p>“Professor Haydn?” A voice beckoned as David appeared in the doorframe of the office. “Yes, I came with the documents asked for.” David slipped out the papers from his inner coat pocket, unfolded them and plopped them on the assistant dean’s desk. “Birth certificate, social security and passport?” The heavyset man asked responsively as he grunted into his chair. David assured that they were all accounted for, and the papers were tossed into a filing cabinet adjacent to the veneered mahogany desk. He quickly made his leave, as he now had time to return to his residence and continue the paper he had neglected for a while now. But as inconvenience would have it, one of his colleagues happened to cross paths with him, and they began to converse as is implicitly required with professional relationships such as this one. The man who had spotted David was a fellow professor of psychology, who was quite knowledgeable in the study of mental imprinting, as he once bragged about his published work about triggering certain emotional responses in Dolor patients through visual stimuli. </p>
<p>“David! I thought you were taking the day off.”</p>
<p>“Nice seeing you Lennox.” David stammered for a bit and gestured back to the assistant dean’s office. “I was just handing in my documents.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, so am I. Kind of an inconvenience, don’t you think?” He chuckled and David responded in kind. “While I have you here…” he continued. “I’d like to discuss that study you were working on for the past few months. Have you gotten into the experimentation phase yet?”</p>
<p>“Well actually I have had some studies done and now have enough concrete data to write it on. I’ve already started.” David replied with confidence.</p>
<p>His colleague gave an inquisitive look. “Oh, I thought you said you couldn’t partner with any labs.”</p>
<p>“Yes at first, but then I was able to connect with a neurologist from a neighboring university and we were able to run some tests.”</p>
<p>“So you think that you’ve found an effective preventative cure for psyche corrosion?”</p>
<p>“There’s still a lot to be done, but I think I may be able to start the groundwork.”</p>
<p>“Well.” He patted David on the shoulder. “Good luck with your endeavors.” With a forced grin he walked off into the office. David resumed his walk as well, and heard his colleague’s voice utter “Good afternoon, Harvey” in the other room as he walked closer to the hallway door.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>His living quarters were the same as all professors who lectured at Memphis. There was a living room/kitchen, one bedroom and one ensuite washroom. As a professor, David was allowed to decorate his space as he pleases, so long as nothing obstructs the two security cameras affixed in the corners of his living room and bedroom. So far in the few months living here he did not bother to decorate at all, leaving the walls as sterile slabs of eggshell white. David took off his coat and tossed it on the sofa and he walked toward his bedroom, which also remained in its default state. On his desk was a portable computer he used for his studies and personal correspondence. The outer case had leather handles and a three-digit combination lock to keep it secure. He opened the computer and opened the draft of his research paper. He began typing intermittently, making brief pauses in moments where he had to gather his thoughts. A few minutes passed, he opened one of the side drawers of the work desk and fished out a worn yellow folder. He flipped through the papers inside and found the one he needed. That folder contained the printed experiment results his colleague in the Stamford Neurology lab had given him for reference. “Subjects continued to exhibit symptoms of psyche corrosion…” David began to mumble as he typed. “Exposure to Subject A was administered at 7 o’clock… evident that functions were repairing in…” He shuffled through the papers once more and resumed typing.</p>
<p>David previously had a large sense of doubt that he would ever reach this stage of his study. Since the start of his career, he hypothesized that psyche corrosion could be subdued through the process of teletransmission. He became interested in this subject when as an impressionable freshman at the very institute he now works for, he learned about the innate abilities of humans to influence each other’s mental state through pure intention. Mnemonicides were a class of humans especially potent in these abilities, though for some reason they mainly used them in the erasure of memories. David had once conducted tests on Mnemonicides as a researcher earlier in his career. Though it was a regrettable period of his life, for reasons he would rather not dwell on at the moment, or ever. Even after he traded in his lab coat for a cozy teaching job, he still stuck to his educated hunch that the same principles Mnemonicides apply during memory erasure could be used to repair a person’s psyche. It was all just teletransmission after all, and he figured that the reason why Mnemonicides only erase memories instead of any other form of influence is that it is the easiest way to influence the mind. However, he had heard rumors of Mnemonicides capable of doing other things, such as altering memories, changing the emotional state of certain people, or clearing a person’s mind of cluttered thoughts or stress.</p>
<p>It was just after he had accepted his position at the Memphis Institute of Psychology, that he heard of one of those gifted Mnemonicides being studied in the Memphis location of Stamford. To make another stroke of luck, he happened to be close with someone who worked in that school’s neurology department, so he would be able to witness it personally. Over the process of several months he had proposed a series of experiments to test his theories, under his colleague’s name of course, and had instructed the gifted Mnemonicide to heal the psyche corrosion of willing participants in this study. The subjects were given an MRI before and after these trials, and also filled out a questionnaire. There were never any visible effects, though the results of those MRIs had given David sufficient evidence that there may be a way to develop this method further. Hopefully he would be able to continue leading these studies, to ensure that they would be done correctly without any harm done like before.<br/>
It was now evening according to David’s watch. His stomach grumbled and waked him from his trance of continuous typing. The lids under his eyes felt heavy and thick, where blinking brought a slight relief to him. He stretched up from his chair, his back and shoulders feeling like they’re cracking open with dust spitting out of the bones. David was pleased with the amount of work he had done, though he was far from done.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>The next morning David was giving a spirited lecture on the topic of external brain signals to his class of a couple hundred. As a professor, he is respected and well-recognized as a brilliant contributor to the study of teletransmission and psychology as a whole. Multiple published works which arguably helped in the public’s understanding of how psyche corrosion and the Dolor works in a physiological sense. At the Memphis Institute of Psychology, one of the world’s most renowned schools of psychology and neurology, David was one of the most respected academics teaching there. It was a little different than what David had wanted to do when he attended this very institution as a young adult. He wanted to contribute to the fight against psyche corrosion by working as a hands-on researcher, and when he finally achieved his dream he found that the field was different than he imagined. Of course, teaching was an obligation which didn’t take as much time in comparison, giving him plenty of time to work on his hoped-to-be magnum opus.</p>
<p>Half past eleven came and the class was dismissed. David gathered his materials and began to walk off to the cafeteria. In the hallway connecting the lecture halls to the foyer of the main psychology building, he encountered his professional colleague, though he refers to him as a “friend” in kind, Dr. Lennox Cross.</p>
<p>“Professor Haydn, is it?” Lennox cracked a slight joke of meeting David for the first time, something he does occasionally when he’s in a chipper mood. “Come, I’d like to discuss something with you.” Hand on shoulder, Lennox lead David outside the building and towards the cafeteria.</p>
<p>They were seated at a table with empty ones next to them, something which seemed a little queer to David. Lennox’s plastered, confident smile he wore most of the time in public shifted to a carefully sculpted look of anticipation as he leaned in his seat and began to speak.</p>
<p>“This might not be something I should pry into, but I think you need to hear it.”</p>
<p>David’s suspicions were confirmed. He had rarely seen Lennox speak in that tone, a tone used exclusively when he was truly serious about something, something important to him.</p>
<p>“You’ve been looking into preventative measures for psyche corrosion which can be implemented on a massive scale. As you know, many have tried to before and while they may say that they succeeded in what they had set out to do, they really just settled for all they can do. But I get this feeling from you, and only you, that you are entirely sure of what you’re doing. That you think this will incite real change.”</p>
<p>David cleared his throat nervously. “Yes, I am very sure of myself.”</p>
<p>“David, I feel that your talents are going to waste sitting around at your desk all by your lonesome, facilitating all the tests and studies needed for your work by yourself. You are… a fox going at the speed of a snail. And once you publish this paper you will be far from finished. Am I right?”</p>
<p>He gave a quick nod.</p>
<p>“I know a certain group of individuals like yourself, brilliant minds who congregate and provide a support network for what they do. And I’d like to introduce you to them.”</p>
<p>David finally spoke up. “Why are you suddenly telling me all this? I’ll admit that I haven’t known you that very long, but in that time you’ve rarely brought up anything like this.”</p>
<p>“Because I feel obligated to. I feel that it would be a waste not to.”</p>
<p>“So this group… this group you’re telling me about now out of the blue would help me with my work?”</p>
<p>“You would help each other. I’m not kidding here David, this is real. And it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. A lifetime that you need to make the most of, am I right?”</p>
<p>Staring down at the table and his hands locked together, David’s mind was filled with the static of indecision and inability to move forward. Lennox was not a man who he trusted that well, he always expected there was a façade beneath his well-intentioned words and behaviors. However, he also expected no ill intentions from him. Whoever he may be on the inside, Lennox would have no reason to lie or joke about this. Everything he told him is certainly true, although why did he never mention it until now? Moments passed. Lennox was sitting in the same position he was in as he finished speaking, subtly laid back in his chair, head cocked toward David’s eyeline and one hand resting on the table. His body was frozen in time, just as David’s mind. Looking down once again at the table, staring at his cupped hands. Seconds lurched on, and he noticed the aged details on his skin. A tease of a wrinkle where the fingers met the back of his palm. His knuckles stuck out through his thinner fingers, outlining his bone in a pale hue. He had noticed for the first time that he started to look old. By his mid-thirties it would make sense for these features to start showing for someone of his lifestyle, but it was still a slight shock to David, perhaps even a wake-up call.</p>
<p>Finally he looked up at Lennox, who gave a premature grin. “That sounds great. When can I meet them?” He replied with a smile to cast out any previous doubts he had.</p>
<p>Lennox rose from his seat. “Right now, as a matter of fact. There is assembly waiting for your arrival at the hall.”</p>
<p>David stood up to follow Lennox, donning his winter coat and sliding in his chair. They approached the door outside, and Lennox turned his head for one last word before heading out.</p>
<p>“Trust me David, you will thank me for this day.”</p>
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